Our Names
by TheSpiritMaiden
Summary: The apartment was too quiet without Luigi that night. Instead, Mario has dinner at an old cafe in the company of its lonely cashier.


**Just an idea I had.**

Mario didn't often find himself eating out. No, the majority of the time he and his brother Luigi would sit in their small, dusty two-room apartment eating food eaten only by those with the same amount of pocket money as a college kid. The only difference was that they weren't in college, and certainly wouldn't be going there anytime soon.

The night his brother left for a job interview Mario found that the apartment was rather desolate without his younger brother. Desiring company to eat with but having no close friends, he took a crumpled bill he had been saving and walked out the door of their apartment, locking it behind him.

The sky was cloudy and the cool air smelled like rain and gasoline. Grey slush and snow lined the curbs in the late winter-early spring Brooklyn, and Mario tried to walk far from it, yet his heavy brown boots still splashed water at each step. He knew there weren't many good restaurants in the close area—not that he would be able to afford to go to one, anyway—and eventually stopped before a small coffee shop wedged tightly between two buildings.

He eyed the chairs and tables outside with their peeling white paint and the faded rainbow-striped umbrellas that were closed for the weather, wondering if the manager had even bothered to put them away when summer ended. On the window a blinking neon sign hung, reading "We're Open", but inside the light was yellow and dingy. He walked up to door with his hands in his pockets and pushed it open with his shoulder, ringing a high-pitched bell above him. The room was empty save for the pretty but tired-looking cashier, and all of a sudden he was grateful that he didn't need to sit and make conversation with someone he didn't even know.

The air was slightly musty and smelled like coffee beans, but everything seemed clean enough. When he made his way to the young cashier, he realized she was sleeping.

He tapped her shoulder. "Excuse me, Miss?"

With a surprised cry, her eyes flew open and she toppled from the stool she had been sitting on and hit the floor. Mario leaned over the counter to see if she was alright, and voiced his concern. She rubbed her head, mussing her already-unkempt blonde hair, and shakily got to her feet before speaking:

"I'll live."

She stared at him, examining him from his curly brown hair to his old Yankee's sweatshirt down to his jeans and boots. Looking back up to his face, she nodded. "Good evening, sir, what can I get you?"

Mario glanced up at the menu boards, his eyes running past the breakfast foods and stopping at the soups and sandwiches. Hungry and not in the mood to pick, he turned to the cashier. "What's the best thing I can get under ten dollars?"

In the end he settled on a cup of coffee and meager bowl of soup that left him with only coins for change. Taking his drink and soup he sat in a booth away from the front windows.

To his surprise he saw the cashier turn off the neon sign and flip a "Sorry, We're Closed" sign over the double doors, not even two minutes after he got his food. He shot a glance at the time—just past five o'clock—and stood.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, did I come a little late?" he asked. "Should I be leaving?"

The young woman turned to him and shrugged. "Go ahead and eat," she replied, "my boss went home early, and I never get customers at this time."

Slowly, Mario sat back down. After a sip of the half-decent coffee, he picked up the dull silver spoon and tasted some broth from his soup. Not much to his surprise, it was very salty. But it was warm, and the meat didn't taste like cardboard.

But he was taken aback when a figure appeared next to him, holding a plate and a cup of tea. "May I sit?"

Bewildered, he nodded. "'Course."

She set down her food and slid onto the bench across from him. "I'm sorry," she began, "I just prefer eating with someone than alone in the kitchen. My boss usually has me make a couple sandwiches and tea for the two of us, but he went home not feeling well, and—I'm sorry, I must be rambling." She smiled sheepishly. "He's a nice man, though. He has a very good heart."

"I know what you mean, eating with someone," Mario said, thinking of his brother. Luigi wouldn't be home until around six, and Mario wasn't looking forward to spending more time alone in their apartment than he needed to. Eating and talking with someone would help pass time well.

"Who?"

"Excuse me?"

"Who do you eat with?"

Mario shrugged and took a long drink from his coffee. "I live with my brother, Luigi. He has a job interview tonight, and I had nothing to do. So," he gestured around them, "here I am."

The woman chuckled, taking a bite of her sandwich. "What's your name?"

"Mario Mario."

"Mario… Mario?"

He waved his hand. "That wasn't always my last name. My brother insisted we change it."

Interested, she took a sip of her tea. "Why would he change it to your last name?"

"We've been running an independent business for a while. People see me before they see Luigi, and refer to us as the 'Mario Brothers' rather than by our last name. My brother gets jealous; he actually emptied our savings to have our last names changed!"

"My parents had my first name changed when they adopted me," she said. "I was two, and they hated the name I had been given at birth, so they renamed me. They were rich enough to do it without breaking the bank."

Mario finished the last of his coffee and swallowed a spoonful of soup. "What's your name now?"

Wrinkling her nose, she said, "They named me Cornelia."

Mario shook his head. "Don't take this offensively, but what on earth were your parents thinking?"

She blinked her big, blue eyes. "Ugh, I just hate that name. Everyone at school used to make fun of it." She held up the name tag pinned to her shirt. "When my boss, John, hired me and took me in, he offered to change it, but I turned it down."

"'Took you in'?" Mario asked, inquisitive.

Cornelia smiled. "When I was sixteen my parents and I had this huge fight. They kicked me out onto the street."

"They… kicked you out?"

Cornelia waved a hand dismissively. "We've always had a bumpy relationship. Anyway, I came here, John met me and let me sleep here and eat if I worked for him. He's old, but he's a real nice guy." She swallowed. "But he doesn't exactly get the best income. I heard him talking on the phone the other day about closing the place up and selling it to some business owner. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when that happens," she looked around the shop, "because I know that's going to happen. Look at the place! Look at the food."

Mario struggled to find a response to that. "Well, I'm sure things will get better," he said lamely.

Cornelia sighed. "Everything's been getting worse lately. It's no surprise to John or me. Neither of us will have anything once it happens."

Mario suddenly had an idea.

"Hey—you can stay with me and my brother!"

She looked up in surprise. "What?"

"Just stay at our apartment until you can support yourself," Mario said, not believing he was suggesting that.

"Would you really do that?" she asked. Mario nodded.

It was all so quick that Mario didn't register it very much at all, but the woman leapt out of her side and tackled him into booth in a bone-crushing hug.

"Jesus, thank you so much! Thank you, thank you, _thank you_!"

When she got off him and helped him up, she was beaming with a happiness Mario had never seen in the Brooklyn he knew.

"Showers, new clothes, beds!" she squealed to herself, making a part of Mario feel more sorry for the lost cashier than he already was. "I'll talk to John about it in the morning," she said, but her face fell.

"John… I don't know what he'll do once I'm gone. After everything he's done for me I can't just abandon him."

"Talk to him in the morning," Mario said. "We'll decide things from there." He leaned forward. "And, just so you feel a little more comfortable, my brother and I are probably no older than you."

"Don't you have school? Or parents?"

"We dropped out when our parents died. Don't _you_ have school?"

"I don't have time. And I'm sorry about your parents."

"It's fine. It's been a couple years already, anyway. We've healed."

There was a silence. Cornelia tilted her head. "What's your real last name?"

"You mean my dad's?"

She nodded. Mario rubbed the back of his head.

"My name was Giordano; my parents were Italian."

"You do have a slight Italian accent," she giggled, "did you grow up there?"

"I've lived in the U.S. my whole life, it's kind of a disappointment that I don't sound like it," Mario smiled. "What's your birth name?"

Cornelia bit her lip. "It's a really weird name, almost as bad as Cornelia."

"Come on, I told you my last name."

"Peach."

"What?"

"My name was Peach. You know, like the fruit." She stirred her tea. "I could go for some peach tea right now. On the assumption that you don't drink tea, I think that's what I'll miss about living here." He noted how quickly she had accepted his offer.

"I think that's a pretty name," Mario said honestly. Cornelia snorted.

"It's something you name a pet, not your kid."

"I'm serious. It's a very pretty name, and I don't see how your parents could change it."

For a moment she looked completely unreadable.

The phone rang, and she tore her gaze away from his. "Wonder who that could be," Cornelia muttered under her breath. "Excuse me for a moment." She got up and hopped over the counter, picking up the phone. "Hello?"

Whoever was on the other end said something that made her face grow pale. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she nodded. "Y-yeah, I understand. I'll drop off the keys to the place on my way home." With clammy hands, she put the phone back in its receiver.

"Who was that?" Mario asked.

Her voice shook terribly. "That was the police. They told me not to come to work here again."

"What? Why?"

Her lip trembled. "The guy who was speaking said John collapsed in the street on his way home and was taken to the hospital. He died an hour ago."

Mario bit his lip. "God, I'm so sorry, Peach—"

"Don't be, I wasn't really that close to him. The police also said—wait, why'd you call me 'Peach'?"

"Well, that's your name, isn't it?"

"Cornelia is my name," she said. She seemed to be trying very hard not to cry. "No one calls me—"

"No, Peach is your name," Mario stated firmly. "Have anyone call you what they want, but I believe the name you were born with is the name you keep. My name is not Mario Mario. My name is Mario Giordano, and your name is not Cornelia. I am not calling you that anymore, because you told me yourself you hate it. And you shouldn't hold back tears; when you talked about John he seemed pretty special to you."

She was silent. Mario was the first to speak.

"It's getting late. You should get your things if you want to stay at my place."

Numbly, she nodded and left the room.

Mario sighed. What had he gotten himself into? He could barely support himself and his brother. How would things change with a girl? He hadn't talked to a woman in his life—that was Luigi's profession—and he had already made himself looking like an idiot, calling the poor woman 'Peach'. Why hadn't he just listened to her? She was probably in the back room, bawling into a pillow to muffle her cries and keep her pride.

Why were people so damn prideful?

At that moment he remembered his brother had no idea he was bringing a girl home, and ran to the phone by the counter.

**Simply an experiment. Written sometime late 2012.**

**I know this is unfinished. The reason I'm not continuing is because it's just too dark for this particular fandom's universe. Believe me, I've tried to write, but haven't got very far, and I have other projects for both Mario and Zelda I'm trying to work on.**

**I could read it without cringing at every other word, however, so I decided to publish what I had anyway. Criticism is highly appreciated.**

**thespiritmaiden**


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